FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Spunro wrote: i do have a boggy area near me where sundews grow but its on a nature trail and i dont really know if its okay to take even though there is plenty

Is there a groundskeeper-type person for this nature trail? If so, you could ask him/her if you could get a handful or two of sphagnum moss.

Spunro wrote: either that or there seems to be a thin layer of moss on the top of my flytrap’s pot, im not sure if its sphagnum but if it is i could maybe try and grow some from that?

Can you post a picture of this moss?

1) i dont think so, its just a public path/walk place owned by the highland council i believe

2) ill get a photo ASAP, im not home at the moment

MikeB wrote: ↑Sun Feb 04, 2024 6:19 pm

Spunro wrote: i do have a boggy area near me where sundews grow but its on a nature trail and i dont really know if its okay to take even though there is plenty

Is there a groundskeeper-type person for this nature trail? If so, you could ask him/her if you could get a handful or two of sphagnum moss.

Spunro wrote: either that or there seems to be a thin layer of moss on the top of my flytrap’s pot, im not sure if its sphagnum but if it is i could maybe try and grow some from that?

Can you post a picture of this moss?

is this sphag?

No. That looks like either a carpet moss or star moss.

Spunro wrote: ↑Sun Feb 04, 2024 7:41 pm is this sphag?

This is what sphagnum moss looks like (at least, one of the green species):

Spunro wrote:got a wee chunk of moss from my garden, does this look like it would work?

That is what I use the umbrella term of sheet moss, it isn't wet and doesn't react at all like Sphagnum with you plants. Barry Rice has a poor opinion of it, see link below, and he does say somewhere that it can even cause your carnivorous plants harm

https://www.sarracenia.com/faq/faq3260.html

Cheers
Steve

MikeB wrote: ↑Mon Feb 05, 2024 3:29 am

Spunro wrote: ↑Sun Feb 04, 2024 7:41 pm is this sphag?

This is what sphagnum moss looks like (at least, one of the green species):
Sphagnum moss.jpg

good to know, will look out for this

is this sphag?

Images are way too big for me to see with my Internet speed connection.

is this better?

Worse. You went from 5.08 MiB to 6.25MiB. No big deal, lots of people have fast internet speeds. I'm just blessed to live out in the country where my top download speed is 0.5Mbps and *something* (the something is Centurystink/Brightspeed) further degrades the speed. I can usually handle images below 1MiB okay, around 500KB is better...multiple images really slows things down (I think the system is trying to download them all at once). Right now as I've been writing this I can finally see the first 5MiB image...the second 6MiB one is still spinning circles.<sigh> It's no biggie...just thought I'd mention it to you. Btw, that looks like sphagnum moss to me.

One thing to remember, too, about sphagnum...it has no roots.

thanks for confirming! sorry about the big file sizes, i was trying to compress it in ibispaint but it clearly didnt work haha

ive put the sphagnum in a container, do i just water it (rain water) and give it light?

Yeah, but some rain water in the bottom of the tray and give it light. I tend to think it works well if you have a clump in the middle of the tray and let it grow outward. I've seen others recommend to scatter small clumps out. I just like the larger, single clump in the middle.

cool, should i put some sort of soil under it? or will it be fine as is? If so, i assume it needs some variety of peat?